Parma's Secret Gardens and Land Art Trail: Interno Verde 2021

Parma, reaffirmed as Italian Capital of Culture for 2021, hosts Interno Verde, a two-day event exploring the city's hidden gardens. The slow itinerary, on foot or by bike, reveals Renaissance cloisters, Italian-style gardens with box hedges, suspended vegetable patches, urban collective orchards, and restored green spaces like the Orto Botanico di Parma, Parco Ducale, and Parco della Cittadella. Each garden is accompanied by botanical, historical, and architectural information, curated by the organization 'Il Turco' to promote understanding of the city's heritage. Parallel to this, a new Sentiero d'Arte (Art Trail) connects the Medieval Castle of Torrechiara with Langhirano, famous for its prosciutto factories, along a 10-kilometer hilly path through Malvasia vineyards, vegetable gardens, wheat fields, woods, and waterways. The trail features Land Art installations created for the occasion, mainly by artists from Emilia: Alberto Vettori (also the initiative's creator), Oscar Accorsi, Danilo Cassano, Graziano Pompili, and female artists Mirta Carroli, Lorella Salvagni, Candida Ferrari (with 'Giardino Magnetico'), and Antonella De Nisco. The project is promoted by local institutions and the company Galloni di Langhirano, which has an ongoing program for territorial enhancement through art events. The initiative reinterprets nature through artistic language, recognizing landscape specificity as inseparable from cultural heritage valorization.